Of Winds and Wings
by Ghibly101
Summary: Naruko has put up with her mistreatment for her entire life, never faltering nor wavering. Then one day, an attempt on her life nearly succeeds, but ends up with something no one expected! This is my response to the challenge "Of Winds and Wings" on EDelta88's forum: Challenges
1. Chapter 1

**HELLO! Sorry, I'm just in the mood for randomne****TURTLES!****ss… Okay, enough of that. I saw this on EDelta88's challenge forum and was like "Cool, I wanna try!" So here is "Of Winds and Wings" tell me watcha think, but flames will be used for my end-of-summer barbeque. It will be a sad one, but I've found that stuffing my face and having water-fights with my friends always cheers me up… anyway, if I have incorrect spelling repeatedly (as in I actually think the word is spelled like that), please tell me. That shit annoys me to hell, and I don't want to be a hypocrite. **

**Enough talk, here is "Of Winds and Wings"!**

Chapter One

_ Ugh… where am I? _Thought Naruko, as she regained consciousness. The memories of the previous events came back and Naruko groaned. A kick to the rather small black sack that contained her tiny malnourished body produced a whimper, which resulted in another kick. Naruko heard a crack and barely resisted the urge to scream. Instead, she curled up into a little ball and stayed like that and kind of shut down. Her head pounded with every movement, and she felt nauseous. She wished that the pain would just end, but it wasn't happening anytime soon, because the man carrying her swung her up over his shoulder to hit his back with each step. Poor Naru couldn't help but let the tears pricking the corners of her eyes flow. Soon, she was silently bawling over the evils done to her.

_Why do they hate me so much? Why can't I be normal? What's wrong with me? Why do they hurt me so often?_ She wondered sadly. _And why do I feel like I'm gonna die soon, or close to it? Well… that one's obvious. I'm in a friggin sack. And they're gonna try and kill me. They always do. _The tears flowed openly and freely, soaking that part of the sack. So, of course, the idiot noticed.

"Hey, what's this? Did the itty bitty demon piss its pants?" he asked tauntingly, shaking the sack, then sniffed, "Nope, but I believe those are tears. Awww, what's wrong little monster? Aren't you happy?"

Naruko Uzumaki was not happy. If someone, well, three someones, jumped out of an alley and clobbered you, stuffed you in a sack, and started hauling you off to some unknown location, kicking you every time you made a sound, would you be happy? No, you wouldn't. She was many things; scared, angry, upset, hurt, terrified, sad, annoyed, in pain, and really frickin' frightened; but not happy. _Definitely_ not happy.

He paused to hit her against the tree. Twice. "Answer me! Or can't you talk? Well, either way, you'll get what you deserve, you demon! You killed our parents, so now we're going to kill you!" He smashed her against the tree one, twice, three times hard. Her broken rib got pushed around each time, and on the third, it pushed through her skin. She screamed at the pain and felt the blood pour over her skin. For some reason, though, the blood stopped within a minute, and then her rib kind of absorbed itself back into her body. Nothing besides a bruise, a slight scar, and some dried blood remained after five.

She was amazed at this. Sure, she healed quickly in general, but never this fast! _Now, what would've caused this? _She wondered. She didn't have much time to speculate, though, because, at that moment, she was roughly dragged out of the sack. She took in her surroundings, a picturesque cliff, beautiful scenery, and a forest a hundred feet back, before the man shoved his face up to hers, so close that his awful, alcohol-scented breath wheezed right into her face. She'd smelled worse, but it was still cringe-worthy. But she didn't. Instead, she straightened as much as she could while being held rather uncomfortably. She felt proud of herself, facing him head-on like that, unflinching.

"Looks like our time together has come to an end, demon brat. Any last words before I throw you over the cliff?" The man asked, his accomplices laughing evilly. Naruko just glared at him. She wouldn't let him get to her. She also knew he wasn't kidding, but there was no way she'd beg him for mercy. She knew how that'd work, because it's the same thing every time. They'd hurt her, she'd scream, cry, and beg, and they'd laugh and hit her harder. There's no way she's begging for her life for some creeps' entertainment.

Instead, she spat on his face. That little act of defiance changed everything. It wouldn't have, if the man hadn't been so stupid as to drop her to wipe it off, but he was and he did. Now she had a chance, not much of one, granted, but still, a chance's a chance, and there's no way in hell she wasn't taking it. Before he could react, the blond dived between his legs (Not in _that_ way, ya perverts!) and ran to freedom. Sure, she wasn't strong, far from it, but she was fast. If she wasn't, she'd never survive her birthday. She sprinted towards the tree-line, and she would've made it if the friggin' goons weren't there.

_I hate my life._ She thought as she was dragged back to the cliff edge by her hands. She peeked over the edge as the annoying man behind her started his classic "Death-to-the-demon-because-I'm-somehow-cleansing-the-world-by-throwing-an-innocent-five-year-old-over-a-cliff-and-you-should-be-happy-to-die-because-you're-so-evil-that-hell-is-your-home-yap-yap-yap-demon-blah-blah-blah-death-yak-yak-yak-I'm-so-great-chat-chat-chat-I'll-be-a-hero-blab-blab-blab speech" it got kind of boring after the eighteenth time you heard it. _Actually,_ she thought as she saw the seemingly endless drop, _I rather like my life. Am I really going to die here? _She wondered, as she peeped over the edge,_ Yeah, I probably am._

When the psycho kidnapper finished his monologue, he grabbed Naruko by the throat from his cronies. He then held her out over the open air. That's when her fear got to her, when the _holy-crap-I'm-gonna-die _feeling sunk in, and she finally gave in and screamed. His grip tightened and she couldn't breathe, effectively cutting it off. She started to claw desperately at his hand, before realizing the counterintuitiveness (So what if it's not a word? It is one now!) of it and grabbed his arm instead.

"Goodbye… demon scum!" he cried as he let go of Naruko, letting her plummet off into the distance. She didn't even start screaming until five seconds later. "Dumb fox." He muttered, slightly grouchily, but his grin betrayed his true feelings. He leaned over the edge to watch the damned demon go splat. _This one's for you, Dad._


	2. Chapter 2

**Hey guys. I feel kinda mopey and angsty right now and decided that writing is the second best thing I have to drawing (which I can't really do at 12:25 given that I'm a kid and my mom doesn't really know the extent of time I stay up at night… or approve of it as I guessed and found out when she caught me doing it a couple of times) I'm sorry if this ends up any angstier than it should be. Oh yeah, and the first person/third person POV switches may come often. Some stories I automatically know which one is better, but even after a rather long internal debate, I couldn't decide, so I'm sorry if the switches irk you. It may switch each chapter, or you may go six chapters without seeing a single first-person POV. Eventually I'll probably settle on one, but for now, you'll have to deal with it. Actually, I'm going to keep this third, but I may, either accidentally or just because I feel like it, randomly put a first-person chapter and/or segment. Oh yeah, and I don't own Naruto or the characters. The plot and most aspects of the story are mine, however, so don't go around using it without my direct oermission.**

**Well, anyway, here's chapter two of "Of Winds and Wings"!**

Chapter Two

Naruko clawed desperately at the hand wrapped around her throat. _I'm so not dying, now! Not after what the goddamned villagers put me through!_ But then she realized something. _He may be choking me but his hand's the only thing keeping me up over a goddamned cliff! Damnit, my life sucks. Death by suffocation or death by pancake? Hmmm… hard choice. And by death by pancake, I mean death by pancake-ification also known as what happens when you combine somewhat squishy, delicate objects (like human beings), the law of gravity, and cliffs and other high places. _

Naruko had developed sarcasm as almost a self-defense mechanism. Whenever she got in danger or got hurt by the villagers she got sarcastic. It held the fear at bay when it was going to overwhelm her, it fought back the darkness in her mind as it threatened to consume her, and it also kept her emotions working and with her when she had started losing them. It also led to trouble when she voiced her thoughts out loud. An extra kick in the gut, another few slashes with the kunai, or even the nerve to light the wood as they tried to burn her at the stake. Her sarcasm earned her a great deal of pain, but to her, it was worth it. Her emotions made her Naruko, and if she lost those, she lost herself. The darkness was more dangerous, she could lose herself and all control if that took over. And then there was the fear. The fear that had haunted her day and night, in her dreams and in the world. If she gave in to it, she'd shut down. But her, smile, her humor, and her sarcasm got her through that. But it couldn't get her through this. No, fear, darkness, and emotionlessness were one thing, but plummeting thousands of feet and lack of air were another.

Then, the man let go. _Pancake it is, then._ Was her last rational thought before she started falling. She couldn't scream, as she didn't have enough air yet. Instead, she could only freeze in terror. She was scared of death, and there it was, staring her in the face in the form of the rapidly approaching ground. She closed her eyes as the tears leaked onto her face.

"Goodbye…" she whispered. Then she could help but add, "Cruel world." It was a clichéd thing someone supposedly said before committing suicide. It's the kind of thing that the sarcastic part of her clung to the irony of. She could out-sob-story half the people who ended their own lives, yet she said those words as _someone else_ tossed her over a cliff. Somehow, while plummeting from a cliff, she managed to chuckle sadly. _I guess this is the end._ She thought before feeling a sharp burst of agony. Her torso felt like a ball of flames. Then, there was a flash of light. _Am I dead? _She wondered. She felt air rush by her and slowly opened her eyes. It was the same scenery, but instead of hurtling towards it like she had been before, she was slowly… gliding? It was kind of beautiful. All the treetops were bathed in the light from the now-setting sun. It took her a moment to process what had just happened. She had been falling to her death, felt a pain in her torso, and then randomly stopped and started gliding? _Pain… torso…gliding… Wait… HOLY CRAP. _She looked to the left, up past her shoulder and_- no fucking way in the nine layers of hell. No. Fucking. Way. Could. This. Be. Possible. _

Attached to her back was a pair of wings. Yes, that's right: _Real life, motherfucking, eight-foot-long wings._ This couldn't be possible. Yet it had happened. Then it hit her: she wasn't flapping and the treetops, while not hurtling towards her at frightening speeds, were getting uncomfortably close. Carefully, she tried to flap her brand new appendages. It was a rather clumsy movement, but, for one thing, it worked, and for another, if you just were thrown off a cliff, frightened to hell and back, accepted death with sarcasm, then grew a pair of _fucking wings_ out of the blue, would you automatically be proficient with them? If the answer is yes, then you are a truly terrifying being, but I believe it is safe to say you wouldn't be. You'd probably be a sputtering wreck and proceed to crash to the ground before you actually thought to extend and flap.

Slowly, after succeeding in staying in the air for five minutes without looking like a dying loon, Naruko started to relax. The now-familiar pattern of the wings soothed her and she felt something stir in her that she never had before. _Freedom._ Before she was always trapped. Trapped, in the bindings around her wrists and ankles as the fire consumed her struggling body. Trapped, in an alley with nowhere to run as strangers harmed her in more ways than just physical. Trapped, in that building the Hokage dared to call "her home" as invaders came through the broken windows with their weapons. Trapped, in the accursed village as it tried to break her spirit. Trapped in this hazy thing called life as she felt the agony that should never be inflicted on a child. But now she was free. Free, flying over the treetops with a smile on her face. Free, as she beat her wings to a rhythm only she could hear. Free, as her heart raced from the leftover adrenaline and the new thrill of flight. This realization of what a gift this was let tears of true joy pour down her face. She had not just gotten wings, no, she got something far, far greater than that. She got the thing she'd wished for her entire life without completely realizing it. Freedom. She gave out a whoop before swooping low, sailing high, and then swooping back down again. Her sheer joy nearly exploded all rational thoughts and feelings. That was when something came out of nowhere and hit her square in the chest. _Ugh! No, no, no, no, no!_ She thought, as her eyes seemed to force themselves shut and she collapsed out of the sky. _Damnit!_ Was her last thought before she lost consciousness.


End file.
